“So I should screw up on purpose so she’ll have something?”
Scott shook his head. “No. What if I’m wrong and she cans you? I can’t survive this place without you.”
I laughed at that as I closed the laptop. “Says everybody’s favorite teacher.”
“Plenty don’t like me.”
“The other male teachers? Oh poor you. That’s what, four teachers? Plus that is pure jealousy not dislike.” I left the table before I was drawn any further into conversation with him.
I didn’t even make it to the hallway before I was intercepted by the assistant headmaster. “Your car is an eyesore. You need to start parking off campus and walking in to work,” she said with that tone of disdain that was so thick I felt like I was being subjected to horrible acting every time she spoke to me.
“There isn’t a requirement in my job description that states I have to drive a specific type of car.”
“It’s in your contract that you represent the school whether you’re on the clock or not.” Her icy smile made me want to slap it off but I didn’t of course. I needed my job.
Instead, I nodded. “No problem.”
I stepped around her and into the hallway. The part of me that played Raven over the weekend wouldn’t have put up with a frost beast like Ms. Palms. Too bad I wouldn’t be seeing that part of myself again.
My remaining classes went well.
I even got Howie to rent a laptop for me from the library so I could use it instead of the German teacher’s laptop. The kid was all too happy to help me. I probably shouldn’t have let him, but I didn’t want to leave any of my search history on her laptop since I wanted to find out about the Woodards. I needed to figure out who would be coming at me.
In the south, there was and always will be rumors about organized crime families. No place sold scary like the south. Between mafia, witch doctors, voodoo priests, black magic, vampire lure, haunted domains and my least favorite the largest population of alligators, the south was not a place to take lightly.
“I got it checked out for a week. Let me know if you want me to extend it. No problem, all right?” Howie asked with a smile, which I was grateful for since he’d interrupted my internal thoughts.
“I’ll make it up to you, thanks, Howie.”
His expression grew serious. “Just don’t stop working here. Promise?”
“I promise that I won’t stop working here unless they fire me. That I can’t do anything about.”
Howie laughed with a snort. “Why would they fire you? You’ve doubled the dance program size. Everyone wants to be in your class.”
I took the laptop and tucked it into the messenger bag I was carrying. “I think that’s probably because I don’t give much homework.”
He had a dopey grin on his face that made me want to pinch his chubby cheek.
“I gotta stay after for chess club. See ya tomorrow.”
“See ya,” I said and headed down the hallway. I was glad to be doing something, looking into a PI and the Woodards, but I couldn’t ignore that after my mortgage on my apartment, I’d only be giving the two loan sharks about three grand, which meant pretty soon I’d be learning to live without gas and heat.
I wonder how many notices they give before they turn off that stuff? Can they turn off the water? That has to be illegal, right?
Figuring I’d look up those questions on the laptop too I was making a mental list of what I needed to look up when I exited the school. The assistant headmaster decided to come into my room and insisted after the fourth period I move my car off campus so I had a bit of a walk ahead of me.
Not so much fun to see all my students being picked up by fancy cars or driving away in them while I was hoofing it, but it wasn’t their fault I married such a dud.
I was still thinking about my list of questions when I realized I wasn’t walking by myself. A woman had fallen into step with me. Her long brown hair was pulled into a low ponytail and the way she was looking at me was like she was trying to crack an encoded message that was tattooed on my face.
“Do I know you?” I asked her, continuing on my way.
“Obviously not, but you should,” she said. “I mean, you snatched a high paying customer right out from under me. I had a replacement lined up and what did you do? You stole my Jon.”
Shit. How the hell?
“I’m sorry, what? I’m lawfully employed here, which you must know if you’re here looking for me.” I quickened my pace thinking she was not the pimp I envisioned when I’d heard that electronic voice on the other end of the phone line.
“I was there, sugar lips. Or should I call you Raven? You can play coy if you want but I have a recording of you that would wreck the nice job you have here. Seems like you wouldn’t want that.”
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy to make eight grand free and clear. Shit!
“I don’t have the money. I gave it to some loan sharks. So, if you’re here trying to get money, you’re shit out of luck. I don’t have any. My ex cleaned me out.”
The brunette with her pointed chin looked me over again. “You think I’m here for the six grand? Honey, you owe me more than that, you cost me a Jon. He should have been good for at least two more sessions. You went and fixed him in one. That’s bad for business.”
I did? Aww, that makes me happy.
“Well, what ya gonna do?” I asked with a laugh. “Threaten to kill me? Join the club okay?”
“I’m gonna put you to work,” she said in a no-nonsense tone as we reached my car.
The sound I made was somewhere between a raspberry and snort but it got my point across. I opened the door to my car but she kicked it shut.
“You work for me.” She repeated. “Or, you work for no one.” She held up her cell phone showing me a video of me being fingered in that nice restaurant. “This isn’t all I have on you, hooker, all right? This doesn’t have to get ugly. You see I don’t have to kill you to put you out of commission. I could cut up that pretty face.” She patted my cheek and gave me a hard slap. “Fancy school like this isn’t gonna stick by you with a scarred up face and this video leaked, are they? No. And without a job, your loan sharks will kill you.”
“You think I’m going to agree to be your bitch forever because you’ve got video of me? Leak it, go ahead and do it!” I said shoving her hard, surprising us both. One thing was for sure I wasn’t about to start getting slapped around.
She straightened, looking at me anew. “You know you owe me. Do a few jobs for me. You keep half, I get the other half. You pay off your bookie or whoever-the-fuck, and we’ll be square. You do not want to be on my bad side.”
“I’m not a hooker. That was a one-time thing.” I hissed at her.
“You’re more of an instructor. It’s different. Your clients undergo STD screenings before they see you as do you,” she said as she poked me in the arm with something that looked like a pen but hurt like a shot.
“You take the morning after pill?” she asked as she looked at the device she’d just stabbed me with.
“I’m already on the pill. What did you just stab me with?” I rubbed my arm surprised there wasn’t any blood.
I watched as she slid the pen thing into a device not unlike a blood sugar tester for diabetics. Leaning in, I looked at the screen as it began to load information.
“Had to make sure you’re clean, didn’t I? You are, see?” She showed me a readout that said I was negative for more STDs than I knew existed. “We can be friends, business partners, or you can be regretting it for the rest of your short life.”
“I have a job I can’t just disappear to work for you.”
She smiled at me like I’d agreed to something. “You have nights, weekends, and summers off. You owe me three jobs. Then after that you can tell me when you’re done. There’ll be a car to pick you up at your place at six tonight. That gives you three hours.”
“I didn’t accept your offer.”
She laughed nodding at
me. “Yes you did because you’re not stupid. I looked you up, Raven. I know you’re in deep because of your old man. How else you gonna make enough to keep your head attached to your neck? I’m doing you a favor. Besides, you’re wrong. You can just …” she snapped her fingers in front of my face, “disappear and be working for me in a bottom feeder status instead of the big money position I’m offering now.”
Is this really happening?
“Now you say thanks Mayanne,” she said as I realized why she looked familiar to me. I recognized her from the hotel. She’d been looking at me while she was on the arm of some old man. Mayanne had been there. “You’ll do it. No matter what you’re telling yourself. I can see it in your eyes. You’re a survivor, Raven. You’ll do it because if you don’t get in the car I send for you, my offer will expire.”
She raised her hand and a white car with rolling silver rims pulled up. The back door opened and she got inside. “See you soon, Raven.”
The car pulled away and I stood there staring at it.
What the hell else can happen?
Chapter Nine
“It’s not Thursday,” Dallas said when I found him in the library at the facility where he lived.
I nodded and didn’t bother to try to smile. The truth was, I didn’t even remember deciding to drive to see my brother instead of going home. I didn’t remember walking up to the security check-in desk either. Suddenly, there I was and the nurse at the desk was asking me if I was there to make a payment or to visit with Dallas. Since I was fresh out of money and I’d come to see Dallas, apparently, I picked to visit.
When they told me he was in the library I thought I’d find him alone but when I entered he was sitting with a group of people who were being read to by a young woman with auburn hair that was straight and ended just below her shoulders. She smiled at me when I came in, and her pretty smile told me why Dallas was being read to instead of reading himself.
“You look wrong,” Dallas said looking from me to the reading group and then back. “I don’t like it when you look wrong.”
“Wrong?”
Dallas turned his back toward the reading group before he closed his eyes in a wince. “Like you looked when you came to tell me Mom and Dad are not coming back. I don’t like when you come looking wrong.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Dallas. I’m still coming back.”
He gave me a look that let me know he thought I was stating the obvious. “Something is wrong. You’re upset. Your face looks like Dad is going to make you swim in the ocean.”
I smiled. “You remember that? I can’t believe you remember that.”
“Why are you here?”
Always straight to the point.
“Sorry. I guess I am feeling a little scared. Can I sit with you and the reading group?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Of course not. Because you don’t want people to know I’m your sister? Or?”
“Lower your voice. She’s going to look at us. I don’t want her to think you are my girlfriend.”
I looked over at the reading group again. “I look like the female version of you, Dallas. It’s why I always tell you to cut your hair. She’ll know I’m related to you just by looking at us.”
Little butterflies started fluttering around in my stomach as I realized this was the first time in years that my brother liked someone.
“Is she looking at us?”
I looked again because he was watching me and he wouldn’t believe me if I didn’t check. “No. She’s reading.”
“Good. What’s wrong. You’re messing up the schedule.”
I started to tell him nothing was wrong but then I realized why I was there. Dallas was cold at times but he cared about me and he was the smartest person I knew. He was the only one I could tell what was going on in my life without worrying about them trying to interfere. Besides, what if things didn’t go my way and I did end up meeting my end. Didn’t he deserve to have an idea of why I didn’t come back?
“I gotta tell you something, Dallas.” I took his hand and led him over to one of the tables away from where everyone else was sitting. “I kind of got myself in a jam.” Dallas was sitting up too tall in his chair as if his back couldn’t bend at all. He was looking past my head like he was afraid of what I might say.
“You said you were going to tell me.” He stated in that dry tone of his.
“Bryan skipped town and he’s left a lot of people looking for him. He owed a lot of people money.” I paused to see if what I was saying was registering with him.
Dallas turned and looked back at the reading group. “I know he owes a lot of people. It’s why I gave him money out of the trust.”
“What the fuck did you just say?” I asked nearly coming up out of the chair before he pressed me back down into the seat.
“We’re not allowed to cuss in here.”
I’m about to payroll a hit on Bryan myself! That total shithead asshole!
“Why didn’t you tell me you were giving Bryan money? How much money did you give him?”
Dallas looked at me then pinned me with his eyes. “I’m not stupid, Savannah. I only gave him money the one time. Bryan was being followed and I knew they would follow him home to you. I didn’t want them to hurt you.”
I leaned over the table and hugged him even though I knew he had a hard time tolerating touch. I wrapped my arms around him as tears spilled from the corners of my eyes.
“Stop. Please stop. Now. Quit it. Quit it. Quit it.”
I let go of him. “Sorry. I just didn’t know you’d already been drug into this mess. I know you’re not stupid. Everyone knows that you’re smarter than the rest of us.”
“How will you pay them?” he asked.
“I got offered a job that isn’t legal but it pays well.”
He nodded. “How much does it pay?”
“I got paid about eight thousand dollars the first time I did it.”
“Is it drugs?”
I shook my head.
“Murder?”
“No. Dallas, come on, I couldn’t kill anybody.”
He shrugged. “It’s dangerous or you wouldn’t be paid so much.”
That’s true.
“It’s more dangerous for you not to have the money for the men who are coming after you for the money.”
“I think so too. Mom and Dad would be so disappointed though.”
Dallas stood up his body so stiff he’d have fallen like a tree if I reached out and pushed him. Staring just over my left shoulder, he said, “If you need to stop coming. If you need to go. You can go.”
“No, Dallas. If I were running I’d take you with me.”
He swallowed. “I can’t leave. I’m not better.” Dallas met my eyes once more. “Be safe. I will try to get better. No you have to go. There are only three minutes left of reading time.” He turned and started back toward the group.
I knew he wouldn’t look at me again so I let my tears fall. That was the first time since he’d started living at the facility that he ever spoke of trying to get better so he could leave. Once he was seated and watching the reading woman again I left and drove back to my place with only forty-five minutes before the car would be showing up.
“It’s not drugs. It’s not murder. It’s … an advisory date.” I told myself as I changed into a simple, fitted white dress that I hoped would be okay for whatever I was to be doing.
What it is, is necessary. Three dates. That’s three guaranteed payments to Crawford and Danny and I’ll be getting Mayanne off my back. I don’t have another choice.
A horn honked from outside.
I looked out the window and saw the white car with the spinning rims. That was my ride.
My hands quivered and were clammy and slippery as I held onto the railing when I descended the stairs.
The older man I’d seen Mayanne with the night before opened the back door for me. I figured he might be her muscle since he had a hols
ter on his hip. I got into the car and the door was closed behind me.
“I knew you’d make the right choice, Raven.” Mayanne smiled at me as she handed me a white box with a red ribbon. “Your date wants you to wear this. He also likes to explain what he wants to his advisors. Be ready for anything. We don’t get paid the big bucks for you to show up and say no.”
I opened the box and gasped at the exquisite gown inside. The bodice had two rows of diamonds that looked quite real.
“You play your cards right, maybe he’ll let you keep the dress.”
Swallowing hard I asked, “You can’t tell me anything about him?”
Mayanne tapped her lower lip with one of her long red nails. “I can tell you he’s clean. He’s sexy as hell and every one of my girls that’s had him wants him again.”
I looked at the dress trying to figure out how any of what she said made any kind of sense. “So a really sexy, rich man wants to pay all this money when he can get a woman for free? There’s a catch you’re not telling me and why not send one of your more experienced girls?”
“He’s never asked for the same girl more than once, and I never said you’re for a night as Cinderella.” She laughed. “You have to have guessed by now that our clients have unique appetites and pay for their privacy.”
Unique appetites?
“You’re going to enjoy yourself just as much as you did last night, Raven. Maybe a lot more.” Mayanne opened the door on her side. “I’ll get in front so you can change into your costume. Don’t forget to take your clothes with you in case he wants the dress back.”
She got out and a black divider began to rise between the driver and the back seat.
Mayanne’s phrasing kept repeating in my head as I changed into the gown. The car was on the move, and I didn’t know how long it would be before we stopped. I managed the zipper and then I sat there dressed for front row seats at an opera or perhaps to meet a member of royalty. I didn’t know. I just knew it was a very beautiful dress.
It occurred to me as I felt the car pull to a stop that I could be getting set up to go on a date with a modern day Jack the Ripper, that would be a fine revenge for Mayanne.
Date Doctor (The Date Doctor Book 1) Page 5